


Something's Gotta Give

by orphan_account



Series: After Nur [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Banter, Cal Kestis Needs a Hug, Canon Compliant, Depression, Force Visions, Gen, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychometry, Trauma, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25131943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Cal should be alright, but he isn't. When he returns from the mission on Nur, there's so many things that went wrong, and there's an equal amount of things that are going to be sticking around with him for a long, long time.Or, Cal has PTSD and he has to work through it.
Relationships: BD-1 & Cal Kestis, Cal Kestis & Merrin, Cal Kestis & Trilla Suduri | Second Sister, Cere Junda & Cal Kestis, Greez Dritus & Cal Kestis, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: After Nur [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819027
Comments: 4
Kudos: 59





	Something's Gotta Give

**Author's Note:**

> i had no idea what i was doing while writing and i've been working on this for nine days. if this is bad legally its not my fault

Those first few nights after Nur, Cal finds himself thinking of Bracca.

It was kind of unusual, by now. Every passing day, he found himself thinking less and less of his five year imprisonment on the junkyard planet. At least, it felt like a prison. He knew he should probably keep thinking of it, because that way the tragedy of his master, of Order 66, of losing his entire people, would be fresh in his mind, every single day. He shouldn’t be allowed to forget about it- it was, after all, his fault his Master died.

But after his rescue, his subsequent weeks spent on the _Mantis_ and fighting for a new cause he could believe in- he forgot more and more to force himself to hurt.

And when those times came to recite his mantra, _you can’t forget about it, you don’t deserve to,_ he found himself believing it less and less.

After staring up at the ceiling for what felt like forever, sorting through all the mush inside his head, he thinks back to.... Order 66. The way his Master died in his arms, and he had to cremate him on a pyre of ship parts, and turn away from the burning wreckage, turn away from his Master for the final time...

Cal doesn’t notice when he finally falls into sleep.

  
  


He’s looking up at the platform above Trilla, looking for the source of the ominous noise of what sounded like breathing, but more painful, and so much more clear.

Cal sees the Sith Lord, cloaked in black, descending from the platform and landing with a harsh _thud_. Trilla looks terrified- they all know she’s about to die, that she’s going to die in this place that caused her so much pain and was the source of so much hatred.

When Darth Vader strikes her down, Cal runs. Keeps running. He doesn’t encounter anything, yet somehow that scares him more than all those times he had to dodge floating platforms and Stormtroopers that he _knew_ were there.

In fact, by the time he makes it back up to the _Mantis,_ he realizes.

He left Cere.

Cal left her in that place that tortured her and forced her into darkness, and he-

He-

  
  


“You look...” Merrin trails off, inspecting him. Cal can’t help turning his back to her- he doesn’t want her to see how dark his eyebags are, how gaunt his face looks.

“You do not look good,” she finishes.

“Yeah, that figures,” he mutters, taking a swig from his water bottle.

“Nightmares?” Cere asks. Unlike Merrin, she can see how exhausted Cal’s face is, because unlike Merrin, she’s facing him. Damn.

“Nope. Just can’t sleep,” he lies. Cere looks down, and Cal knows she doesn’t believe him.

To be fair, he’s not _fully_ lying. It’s just that when the insomnia finally fails, the nightmares wake him up and then he can’t sleep again. He might be averaging two hours of sleep a night daily, and he _knows_ how badly that will affect him- back in his early days as a scrapper, when he figured he could stay up and keep working, because making money was more important than his health, because he could rely on credits more than his brain, it took a lot of talks from Prauf, and a lot of sleeping through shifts, for him to realize that maybe he should take care of himself.

But this time, he can’t control it.

And he doesn’t know what to do.

  
  


It’s not Darth Vader chasing him through the halls of the Fortress Inquisitorius this time, and even though he can’t see their face, the pit in the bottom of his stomach makes him think it’s someone to be feared.

Jumping from platform to platform until he reaches the lift, BD-1 beeping over his shoulder, he slams the up button and turns his head.

It’s his Master.

It’s Jaro Tapal,, and that somehow most definitely makes it worse.

Cal feels the breath catch in his throat, his blood turn to ice, and he slams the box harder, and he knows that even though his Master is- _was_ \- kind and never rude to him, if he lags behind he will most certainly be dead.

The elevator rises and the ringing in his ears is getting louder, the pit in his stomach is opening up and screaming at him and everything is screaming, EVERYTHING IS DYING-

  
  


“You sure you’re up to this, kid?” Greez asks, his voice full of doubt. Cal blinks, hurt, and turns his head to the pilot next to him.

“What makes you think I’m not?”

“You’re falling asleep through every meal, and- yeesh, kid, I don’t think you’re sleeping-”

“Why wouldn’t I be sleeping? Of course I’m sleeping!”

“Yeah, maybe after every mission when you crash on the couch.” The Latero sighs and says, “Look, kid, I just don’t want you to hurt yourself, is all.”

“I’m fine, Greez. You don’t need to worry.”

  
  


BD-1 is staying up with him this time.

“Do you think it’s worth it for me to- I don’t know, lay in bed and pretend I can sleep? Because it hasn’t worked for- like- how long has it been since Nur?”

The little droid beeps the answer to his question: one week.

“Bruh,” Cal mumbles. He doesn’t know what else to say, or more importantly what to _do_.

_Is there a reason why I'm still awake?_

BD-1 beeps more, looking up at him with a quiet gaze.

“Might as well- I could...” He closes his eyes, sighing. “I could practice fighting. Stuff like that tires you out, right?”

“Fwoo doo bop,” BD-1 says, doing the closest thing to a droid frown.

“Yeah, I guess missions count as physical activity,” he says, grossly underestimating exactly how much jumping and fighting he does while out in the field. “It’s just that I don’t exactly have anything better to do.”

“Bee doo?”

“I’m not practicing cooking instead.”

“Beep! Be-beep!”

“I’m literally _never_ getting better than Greez, so I’m not gonna try.”

“Be-boop...”

“Not learning Nightsister magic, either- I’m not going to steal all of the things my friends are good at!”

When BD-1 says the equivalent of “Why not?” in Binary, all Cal does is roll his eyes and grab his lightsaber.

  
  


“Where should we go next?” he hears Cere ask. Only after Greez coughs does Cal realize she was talking to him.

“Sorry, I- what?”

“We can either go to Quarzite or Bardotta,” she says, offering no more explanation.

“I say Bardotta, much better atmosphere,” Greez says, looking at Cal. He nods and turns to Cere.

“Bardotta it is, then,” Cere concedes, turning to the cockpit before stopping and looking at Cal. “May I have a word with you, Cal?” she asks, guiding him to the couch. Doesn’t look like _he_ gets in a say in whether he wants to, although he wasn’t expecting to anyway.

“What’s up?” he says, sitting down.

“Will you be able to handle this mission?”

“...Of course, why?” he says, suspicious.

“You look so exhausted all the time. I’m just worried you might fall asleep in the middle of a fight.”

“I’m- then I guess I’d better rest up before then, right?”

Cere shakes her head, smiling a little to herself, and stands up to leave. Cal watches her go, then looks at Merrin, who is still standing at the holotable, her hand on her chin.

“Contemplating?” he asks, standing up. She looks up at him.

“I am just wondering...” she trails off, staring at the planet Serenno that shows up on the map. Cal is about to ask, but she hurries on. “I’m not sure what exactly our new missions are.”

“Peacekeeping. Sith destroying. Rebelling against the Empire,” Cal offers, somewhat unhelpfully.

“How do you know that... this ‘Darth Vader,” she says, air-quoting, “won’t show up again?”

Cal stills. “He’s not- he won’t. Show up, I mean.”

“And the Inquisitors?”

“I’ve defeated them before, I’ll defeat them again,” Cal says arrogantly, but he doesn’t care. He turns around to walk back to his room.

  
  


Cal’s walking through a field of short, stubby flowers he doesn’t know the name of.

There aren’t any trees in sight, or cities, or ships, or even his friends. It’s all just a meadow.

He could get used to this, he thinks. There’s no Empire out here. That means he could finally rest, right?

He sits down, plucks a few flowers and tucks them behind his ear. Yeah. Yeah, this would be nice.

  
  


“Cal, it’s time to go.”

“Huh? What?”

“Cal!”

He stands up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and looking around. “Sorry, didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine,” Cere says, exchanging a meaningful look with Greez, and he’s pretty sure it means _at least he’s sleeping_ , which he doesn’t appreciate.

“Are we already at Bardotta?”

“It’s been four hours.”

“Oh,” he says, blinking. “Oh.”

Cere pats him on the shoulder, and he can barely contain his flinch. Cere’s eyes soften and she removes her hand. “Merrin is waiting outside. I think she wants to talk to you.”

Cal nods, unsure of what else to say, and he quickly steps into his room to change ponchos and restock BD’s stims.

“Cal,” Merrin says as soon as he steps off the ramp. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“On a Sith artifact finding mission?” he says dubiously.

“I can sense darkness better than you,” she says, straight to the point.

“Oh. Huh. Okay,” he says, rather dumbly, still not fully awake. He’s also sure that she’s been put up to this by Cere, but honestly, he could care less; BD-1 wasn’t able to drag him back to the ship if he sat down on a rock and fell asleep, or something- he was just being rational. “Yeah, I could use your help.” BD-1 lets out a series of victory beeps- _he_ obviously wanted her to come. Maybe he also wanted her to drag Cal, but he didn’t know.

Merrin nods, her face still placid. “Good. If you are ready, we can leave.”

“Yup,” Cal says, nodding in return, and then they’re off.

  
  


“Cere tells me that the Bardottans do not like the Jedi,” Merrin says after they climb past a perilous cliff edge. Cal looks at her through bleary eyes, opening them wider to get the sleep out.

“Does that include all Force users, like you?”

“I do not think they have any qualms against Nightsisters.”

“That would-” He thinks for a second, before saying, “That would make sense.”

“Why?”

“I think, I remember a... a friend of mine from during the war, saying that Bardottans didn’t like Jedi because to them, Jedi were kidnappers. But she didn’t say anything else about it.”

“They are,” Merrin says, and Cal frowns.

“I can see why you would think that.”

They lapse into uncomfortable silence after that, and only once they get into the underground caverns does Cal say, “Can you sense any dark objects yet?”

“Something... deep in the ground.”

“Is there a puzzle section?”

“I think there might be a puzzle section.”

“Damn,” Cal sighs, and Merrin snorts.

“What about you?” she says after a while, looking back at him.

“I don’t- usually there’s a pull, that goes along with the Dark side of the Force, but I’m not feeling anything.”

“Why is it Dark?” she says suddenly.

“Huh?”

“Why is that side of the Force Dark?”

Cal blinks, unsure of how to answer. “I- it’s because it’s- it’s just bad, I don’t know.”

“I know that both feel different, but why must they be separated? For Jedi being so focused on balance, they do not seem to know how to teach it.”

“What are you saying?” he asks, frowning.

Merrin shrugs. “There is no Light without Dark. Jedi spend so much time trying to moralize their teachings that they do not consider what they are actually saying.”

Cal, too stunned to speak, doesn’t notice the pull, but Merrin looks up. “Do you feel it?”

“I feel it,” he says quietly, finally noticing.. BD-1 releases the closest noise to a snarl that a droid can muster.

She nods carefully as they begin to descend more and more, until they eventually reach another cavern, this one full of stone blocks, larger than the two of them, with several stories carved out into the wall. Merrin begins climbing to the second floor, while Cal immediately gets to work, Force-pushing things around until he had a vague idea on how everything worked.

“I think that one goes in there,” Merrin says, offering her expert opinion, even though Cal already figured that one out.

He rolls his eyes and finishes locking every block into place, causing a circle in the floor to begin lowering. BD-1 beeps something as the two of them hop onto it, waiting as they lowered into the depths of the caves.

Catching himself in the middle of a yawn, he says, “Do you know how much farther?”

She looks at him, expression unreadable. “We are close.”

The platform they stand on shudders into place, and Cal takes this time to observe his new surroundings. It resembled a throne room hall, lit by shining red gemstone in sconces. It looked to have been untouched for a millenia, dust caked on ground that wasn’t covered in carpet and cobwebs hanging from rock pillars.

“It’s up ahead,” Merrin says, nodding at a chest sitting on a dais at the end of the hall. Cal can’t help jogging to the end of the carpet, up onto the platform. Looking back at Merrin, she nods for him to open it, so he does.

He frowns- all that’s inside is a knife, rather simple, but it reeks of so much darkness that its energy seemed to curl around it, and he could swear he heard it whispering. BD-1 beeps: _that looks evil._ Cal snorts, trying not to listen to the muttering that’s breezing around his head.

When he hears footsteps, he whirls around, looking for who he’s sure is the Sith Lord that’s chasing him again down the fortress hallways, who’s always just behind him, waiting for him-

But all he sees is Merrin, and she’s looking at him with the same unreadable expression as always, but something flashed in her eyes and was gone. “Do you hear voices?” he asks, covering up his panic response quickly.

“Those are the people murdered by it speaking to you,” she says nonchalantly, finally at the chest, looking into it. “That’s normal for Dark weapons.”

“Sounds horrible,” Cal remarks, heart still beating fast. Why in Force’s name did he react like that to _footsteps?_ Trying to forget his panic, he reaches inside to pick it up, but Merrin slaps his hand away.

“You seem to be forgetting that I said people have been murdered by this, and you will most definitely feel their death on your hands.”

“Oh,” Cal says. He did not realize that- his exhaustion and anxiety were making him sloppy. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

The Nightsister picks up the dagger, looking unfazed as she flips it over to inspect it fully. “I think this is enchanted with poison,” she says thoughtfully. BD-1 trills, and Cal pets him absentmindedly.

“That’s nice,” he says, trying not to be disturbed by that. “Can you be cured from it?”

“I don’t know,” she says.

“Do you just die, if you can’t be cured?”

“That’s usually how most poisons work,” Merrin deadpans, “but there are some different cases. Some just make you sick, some make you controllable by others.”

“Like you with the undead? Like a hivemind?”

“Essentially. And with some, you simply become a creature. Rabid and wild.”

“Me when I’m partying.”

She frowns at him. “Nevermind,” he says quickly. “Let’s get going.”

  
  


“How was the mission?” Cere asks as soon as they return. She looks at Cal with an expression as unreadable as everyone else’s. Either his magnificent sense of being able to tell whatever emotion anyone is feeling is gone or he’s just tired. He’s betting on the latter. He’s _hoping_ on the latter.

To be honest, he’s kind of sick of the faces they make and the words they don’t say.

“It was fine,” Cal supplies, dragging himself over to the couch and picking a rock out of BD-1’s joint. “We found a knife.

Cere looks at Merrin, who presents the dagger. Cere picks it up, flips it over. “I’m sensing a poison enchantment,” the Nightsister adds.  
“You should stab the Haxion Brood with it,” Cal suggests, and Greez snorts.

“You aren’t going back there,” Cere says, shooting a glare at Greez, who lifts up his hands in surrender.

“What do we do with it, then?” Cal asks, nodding at the dagger. Everyone immediately turns to Cere, who makes a confused face.

“Maybe just destroy it,” Greez says. “I don’t want that sitting around in my ship, it’ll stink up the place.”

“Can its energy turn things bad?”

“It’ll turn my mood bad, and I want it out!”

“Do we just step on it?”

“How do you destroy _normal_ weapons, Cal?”

“I don’t _know,_ Merrin, I’ve never tried.”

“You destroyed your Master’s lightsaber just fine,” she snarks, and Cal gasps at her.

“Shut up!!!”

She smiles at him sweetly. “Well, what did you do last time?”

“I crushed it with the Force, I think," he says, playing with the back of his hair.

Merrin hands it over and quickly snatches it back when Cal reaches with his ungloved hand, before he remembers and takes it in his covered hand. “Okay, so I meditate with it. Easy. See y’all later,” he says, turning to walk into his room.

“You aren’t doing that alone,” Cere calls after him, and when he turns to look at her she’s following him. “I don’t want you getting overwhelmed.”

“How many times do I get overwhelmed when I do this?”

She stares at him.

“Oh. Right.” He shifts and continues into the back of his room, where he kneels down with the dagger gripped in one hand. He looks up at Cere. “Should I use psychometry on it?”

“I hate to say it, but probably,” she says with a sigh. Cal takes a deep breath and touches his bare hand to the weapon’s hilt.

Immediately, he whimpers, which is kind of pathetic and very embarrassing, and then he’s lost in visions.

_He hears screams, and then a cry of pain. There’s so much wailing. So much death._

_“Please- please stop, she did nothing to you-”_

_“She DOUBTED ME!”_

_Another scream, and the vision fades._

_It opens back up into a dark cavern like the ones he was in earlier with Merrin, but this one has moss growing on the walls and glow worms hanging from the ceiling. There’s someone crying, cradling an arm that gleams green like the roof above her. He approaches, looking her over. She’s Tholothian, can’t be more than 18 like him, and she has a wound on her arm, the source of the glowing._

_“What happened?” he hears himself say._

_The girl, who he’s sure didn’t even notice him before he spoke, sags in relief. “Jay! I’m so glad- so- '' a sob wracks her body, and he reaches out to steady her._

_“Hey, hey- Liz, look at me. You’re okay.”_

_“I’m not,” she says, looking up at him. “I’m going to die.”_

_“Can I see it?”_

_She holds out her arm, and the wound is a clean slice across skin- her veins are a sickly green, pulsing with light. She sobs again. “Someone attacked me- someone evil, with a dagger, and I’m dead, Jay, I’m so dead.”_

_“You won’t die on my watch.”_

_The luminescence of the cave fades and the sky cracks open, bright yellow sunlight pouring in, and suddenly he’s standing in a city with stubby buildings, the roads ragged and worn. He looks like he’s in a farming community, and with the trees beyond the horizon, he guesses he’s on Saleucami._ _There’s a Twi’lek next to him, picking peaches out of a cart, and he steps forward. There’s some energy here, something decaying, and it’s inside the structure he’s stepping into._

_There are cracked windows lining the sides of the derelict building, and crates and boxes are pushed up against the wall._

This building smells of bones, _he finds himself thinking with a shiver._

_Approaching the boxes, he reaches out into the Force, and finds what he’s looking for. The dagger._

_Lifting it up out of a crate, he twirls it around from where it floats in the air, then snatches it and puts it on his belt._

_Turning around, he suddenly realizes that the sunlight from the windows is gone. They’re blocked out._

_It’s because of the vacuuming presence in the doorway._

_A Sith, huh?_

_“You took something of mine,” the cloaked figure says._

_“I only found it. It’s mine now, not yours.”_

_The figure only chuckles. “We’ll see.”_

_The Sith draws out a red lightsaber, but he only has a blaster, and hell, he has to fish around for his regular bullet gun._

_Switching guns, he shoots at the figure’s head, who raises their blade to deflect, only to receive a burst of shrapnel to the face. Seeing an opportunity, he ignores the snarl of his opponent and dives out through the doorway, and lives long enough to feel the blade drive itself through his body._

_His vision goes black, and then he hears screaming._

Opening his eyes, he looks around when he doesn’t hear it stop, then realizes _he’s_ the one screaming.

Geez, not again.

Cere’s looking at him when he looks back up, and their attention turns to the weapon he’s holding. There’s a crack in the blade, and it’s pulsating a steady green, like the girl in his vision who-

He inhales.

“Can I step on it now?” he asks, looking up at Cere. She stares at him, an eyebrow raised, and he reaches his hand back to play with his hair. BD-1 trills his support of smashing weapons.

“I think at this point it’s going to explode under your foot.”

“It’s better than seeing more people dying,” he says, voice colder than he would like, and when he moves the dagger to his other hand, he can’t suppress a flinch. Cere looks like she wants to pat his shoulder, but she doesn’t move, and neither does he. Regaining his composure, he steps back out to the main area and down the ramp, where he sets the dagger on the rocky ground of Bardotta.

“Are you stepping on it?” Merrin asks, head peeking out from the interior of the ship.

“I’m stepping on it.”

“That’s going to have a large energy backlash.”

“Nothing I’m not used to,” he says, and brings his foot down on the dagger.

Suffice to say, it doesn’t do much of anything. In fact, it doesn’t do anything when Cal continues to step on it. Not even when he throws a rock at it. BD-1 boops sadly; both droid and human wanted something cool to happen.

“You might need to use the Force,” Merrin suggests.

“Yeah, that seems right,” he says with a sigh. “Can I Force push stuff on it? Does that count?”

By the dirty look she gives him, he’s guessing that’s a no.

Electing to meditate it apart like before, he kneels down on the ground and concentrates on the ebb and flow of the Force around him; how it feels through his fingers, in his brain, on his skin, and then he pushes his mind into the dagger.

The energy and power of the weapon immediately overtakes his mind, and he can’t help gasping aloud. There’s so much death clouded around it, and Cal fights his way through to the very core of it, until all he hears is his own heartbeat, joined with that of the weapon.

Slowly, he reaches out his mind to envelop the heartbeat, and he crushes it in his fist.

He is unconscious long before the ground erupts.

  
  


Cal’s not dreaming. Not this time.

It’s a small mercy- there’s no Sith stalking the halls, prowling for their prey. There’s no dead bodies of long-gone Padawans who he might have befriended in another life.

He’s just floating in space, but if the sky were honey and smelled like lavender. He feels safe here, just like the dream of the meadow.

He closes his eyes again, but snaps them open when he hears a whistle near his ear.

The bomb sailing past him sends him spinning in the sky, and he watches as the city below him explodes into color.

  
  


“He seems to have a knack for getting injured.”

“Just like the ones under his eyes?”

“At least he’s sleeping _now_ -”

“But for how much longer, Cere? We have all seen him. He pushes through it and then when he comes back-”

“He looks half dead!”

“As long as he’s not dead in general, Greez, I think-”

Cal turns slowly, unsure of where he is, but he hears his very loud friends, so he’s probably safe enough to not necessitate him getting up just yet. If they’re being loud, they’re not on a stealth mission.

Wait, why would he be on a stealth mission?

He’s so tired. Just.... five more minutes.

“Cal?” he hears Cere say, but he doesn’t have the strength to open his mouth, and even then he isn’t sure anything would come out.

“I think the kid’s still asleep,” Greez says.

Someone gets up and leaves, or maybe everyone did, and who all was there, anyway? He didn’t know. He didn’t....

  
  


The next time Cal wakes up, BD-1 is on his face.

“BD?” he mumbles, the little droid staring into his eyes. He beeps quickly in response, then bounces around on his legs as he sits up. He’s back in his room on the _Mantis,_ and the lights are off. Is he dreaming? Is this another nightmare?

When he trips standing up and hits a toe on his metal bed, he decidedly thinks, no, he’s very much awake.

BD-1 keeps beeping at him until he turns to the droid and raises an eyebrow, then, he looks down at himself.

Damn.

Mottled in bruises, he doesn’t look too hot. Most of them are just yellowish-brown, which means he must have been out for- what, one day, two?

What even happened?

Oh, right, he thinks. He tried stepping on a knife and got an explosion to the face.

Conducting a temperature check, he realizes that he really only got bruises, though he’s not sure of anything internal, and probably neither are any of his crewmates. Inhaling, he stutters in the middle of a breath and coughs into his elbow. Okay, difficulty breathing. _That’s always a plus,_ he thinks sarcastically.

Stretching, he looks around, then peeks out to the main area. Greez is sitting in the cockpit, but Merrin and Cere are nowhere to be seen.

“Greez?” he says quietly, and the pilot startles, then spins around in his seat.

“Cal! How ya feelin’, bud?”

“Um...” he averts his eyes, looking out the window and toying with his hair. They don’t look like they’re on Bardotta anymore, just a village with a whole lot of bushes. “Are we stopping for supplies?”

“Oh! Yeah, we ran out of ration bars, and Cere wanted to get a few more things.”

“Did everyone decide those were good suddenly?” he says, sitting down in his seat next to Greez.

“I think it was just Cere.”

Cal nods as though this makes sense. “Did you get enough sleep?” Greez asks tentatively.

“Yeah, I’m good. Not tired.”

"You look like hell."

"You get used to it," he says bitterly.

“But you do look better,” Greez hurries on, “minus the whole...” he gestures around his face, “thing.”

Raising a hand to his cheek, he lightly presses down and winces. Okay, there’s a bruise there. “Probably won’t be for long,” he says with a sigh.

“You know what’ll fix that problem,” Greez says, offering a trademark nugget of wisdom. Cal raises his head to look at him. “A shower. I don’t want to see you until you’re all fresh and not tracking two-day old dirt everywhere.”

“Fair enough,” he mumbles, standing up and turning to go back to his room. Once inside, he sorts through his clothing, searching for a new shirt, when he hears it.

Breathing.

 _The_ breathing.

He freezes, his breath stuck in his chest- if he tried to inhale, it would get stuck somewhere in his windpipe, and he’s too preoccupied to focus on that. Spinning around, he searches for the Sith Lord he _knows_ he hears.

Cal knows there’s no one there. Darth Vader isn’t on this ship, and he isn’t in his room, and it must have been the breeze, or the creak of the floor, or the engines in the ship, because he’s not going crazy, _he’s not going crazy-_

He can feel the sweat start to pool under his arms, and he’s afraid Greez might be able to hear the pounding of his heart from across the ship. He can’t move, he’s stuck here, he’s GOING TO DIE-

Cal slowly slides to the floor, leaning against the wall and squeezing his eyes shut, breathing faster and faster. His heart is beating too fast and he feels so gross and he also feels like he’s going to die because there is no one here but does it matter? DOES IT EVEN MATTER?

Cal buries his face in his arms and cries.

  
  


That night at dinner is quiet. No one is talking, least of all Cal. He’s focusing on his food, trying not to chew too fast or too slow or anything that might concern the others, because dear Force is their concern tiring.

He hears Cere and Greez talking about the food, but he isn’t listening- he’s thinking about the noise he heard that caused him a panic attack, which, _by the way_ , thank you _Mantis._ He tries to think of starship components that would fuck him over by making breathing sounds, but none are coming to mind, and it’s not like he really cares enough to find out (unless he does? _No, no I don’t,_ he thinks) and besides, what questions would that meet him with? _Why did you hear breathing? Are you sure you heard noises, or was it all in your head? Are you sleeping enough, drinking enough, eating enough? Are you tiring yourself out? Take a break, Cal, take care of yourself, you should-_

He stands up abruptly, his chair grating against the floor, and everyone looks up at him. “I have to go... clean my clothes,” he mumbles, and all but sprints to his room, sitting down on the bed with his head in his hands.

Cal really hopes there’s no one standing in the doorway when he lifts his head, and he’s glad when all he sees is his aforementioned dirty pile of clothes. It seems even BD-1 is still with the rest.

In fact, the clothes pile is getting higher than he would like. He usually washes it all weekly, but he can’t remember the last time he even folded a shirt.

He can’t summon enough strength to even get up, so he kicks his shoes off and lays down, pulling the comforter over him.

He doesn’t have the strength for a lot of things these days.

  
  


“Cal, breakfast!”

“Yup,” he murmurs, unsure if Cere even heard him. He doesn’t open his eyes. He’d rather lay in bed, which is kind of ironic, considering he was so scared of nightmares before.

He probably deserves the nightmares, and that thought makes him turn over and go back to sleep.

  
  


Trilla is standing next to him in front of the Jedi Temple, with people on all sides, screaming and shouting. He blinks, confused, then looks back at Trilla- she isn’t watching him, just yelling at the clones posted at the entrance like all the others. Clones? Jedi Temple? _Trilla?_

They’re at an anti-war protest, aren’t they?

“What’s going on?” he asks her, because even though she’s his enemy, she’s the only one he knows here, and he’s not about to start conversing with anti-Jedi sentimentalists.

Trilla sneers. “We’re replacing a broken system.”

“Sys- broken- what? Are you talking about the Senate or the _Jedi?”_

She gestures with a nod at a Jedi Knight walking out of the building- he’s tall, and wearing dark robes. “The oh-so precious Order is the problem, isn’t it?”

“I-” he blinks. He _knows_ that neither side in the war was free of imperfection, but the Jedi were still good. And besides, it was _Trilla,_ why in the name of the Force was he going to listen to her?

“We’re peacekeepers, not the problem- why aren’t you protesting the Separatists?”

“Don’t you see?” she demands. “Jedi aren’t peacekeepers, not anymore, they’re soldiers, bred for war. What are they going to do once the war ends? Impose their regime on more planets, and spread their own empire? Disobedience is a demand for change, and we're all just pawns in a never-ending game.”

Cal goes quiet, then whirls around and pushes through the crowd of people, but it doesn’t stop. There’s so many people around him, and even when he descends the steps and moves to the lower levels, the protesters are still all around him.

He breaks into a run. He’s got to get out of here.

“Look! A Jedi!” he hears someone call next to him, and he must have flashed his lightsaber mistakenly, because how else would they know? People are following him now, and he’s running, just like on Nur, just like when he was chased by Sith, but this time it’s real citizens who just want better lives and he’s just another villain to them, isn’t he?

  
  


Cal shoots upward. _Why do ALL OF HIS DREAMS circle back to the Sith?_ he thinks frustratedly. Why does it always have to be that one horrible memory of when he failed?

He rubs his eyes, and looks at BD-1, who is powered down next to his bed. He can’t keep doing this, getting nightmares and losing sleep, hearing those tells of mechanized breathing and lightsabers turning on and _avenge us_.

He can’t avenge her, he can’t avenge the fallen Inquisitors and abandoned Jedi and little Force-sensitive children. He can’t bring back the Jedi Order if he doesn’t even know what being a Jedi even means anymore.

If he can’t avenge history, then what is he even good for?

 _Are you really a Jedi? After all this time, you know nothing, you had less than a year of Padawan training, you have no access to the old archives, you kill Stormtroopers and cling to the past and take revenge and want things you cannot have and you don’t even honor your_ Master _for Force’s sake-_

Blinking fast, Cal rubs his eyes again and stares at the floor.  
_There’s nothing else I can be._

Feeling the side of his face, he gets up and walks into the bathroom. His left cheek is covered in an ugly blue-black, matching his eyebags. He looks paler than normal, and his hair is more untamed than he would like. He’s probably thinner, too- he’s been avoiding breakfast and lunch, just so that he doesn’t have to see his friends look at each other with those looks and those things they won’t say.

Frustrated, Cal rests his hands on the edge of the sink. He can’t keep doing this. Something’s gotta give, and he’s gonna change it whether he wants to or not.


End file.
